The following article is a reprint. It first appeared in issue #106 of Testosterone Magazine. You can read parts 2 and 3 of this 3-part article by revisiting Testosterone #107.

Sports nostalgia is a favorite hotbed of opinion. Devoted sports aficionados are known to go on for hours discussing the greatness of their beloved heroes from years gone by. Even the casual sports fan can tell you who has the most home runs, or who holds the record for rushed yards or most rebounds. It's always fun to concoct hypothetical scenarios such as how well Babe Ruth would fair against Pedro Martinez or if Sandy Koufax could shut down Ken Griffy, Jr.

As much as the exploits of athletes from the past may intrigue us, it's equally curious that so few bodybuilders are familiar with the history of their own sport. Maybe it's because bodybuilding isn't so much of a spectator sport as it is an individual pursuit.

It's also fair to note that many average gym-going bodybuilders in the year 2000 are comparable in muscularity to some of the top competitors from the 1940s. Then again, today's bodybuilders have so many advantages. There's more available information, better equipment, advanced techniques, and state-of-the-art supplements, to name but a few.

All too often, this leads people into the mistaken belief that the originators of the weightlifting game have little to offer today's young lions. Nothing can be further from the truth. There's a veritable wealth of information to be accessed from our iron ancestors.

In our constant search for something new, we sometimes need merely to look at what's been forgotten. Beyond the lessons to be learned, there's a great and often engrossing history to the sport of bodybuilding. Who were the people that frontiered this incredible activity that's so much a part of our lives?

The fascination with strength and muscularity dates back to the beginnings of recorded history. Greek mythology had Hercules. The old testament, Samson. But bodybuilding as we now know it has its roots at the turn of the 20th century.

A Brave New World

The early 1900s brought a tremendous influx of Europeans to American shores in the hope of a better life. Many of these immigrants shared a common trait: they were accustomed to hard work.

The Irish, Italian, and German immigrants gained a reputation for being big and burly. Competition for employment was fierce among these groups and the uneducated populace in general, and work which consisted of heavy lifting was their only recourse. Standing in stark contrast to these workmen were the "blue bloods" who had grown soft from years of leisure.

The Land of Opportunity

It was this disparity which lead a few first generation entrepreneurs to exploit their manly attributes and cash in on the nation's state of sloth.

Ads began popping up extolling the virtues of physical fitness. Catchy headlines that, by today's standards, appear corny and quaint started popping up in magazines and newspapers:

Charles McMahon) "Are you a man or merely a coat hanger?"
Earle Liederman) "I make men strong."
Bernarr McFadden) "Weakness is a crime, don't be a criminal!"

These prototype bodybuilding routines appealed to young men yearning to overcome their weakling status, but the ads proved especially popular with second generation Americans seeking acceptance in a society where the ability to perform hard manual labor was necessary for survival.

The Birth of a Business

Strength and muscles were becoming all the rage in the flamboyant "Roaring Twenties." For instance, the Ziegfield Follies was a famous vaudeville review which featured musical numbers, dancing girls, magicians, and comedians. However, its most popular feature was a strongman act. But this was no ordinary circus bit. The performer was billed as "The World's Strongest Man" ? an overt exaggeration, to say the least, but the paying public didn't know any better, nor did they care. The act was wildly popular, and with good reason.

The performance began with a man of dashing good looks stepping onstage. He would then disrobe, revealing a body that looked as if it were carved from stone. Michelangelo's David, once considered the paragon of male perfection, paled in comparison with the amazing specimen featured in Ziegfield's extravaganza. The striking sensation was billed simply by the name of Sandow.

Besides his remarkable muscularity, Sandow exhibited some extraordinary feats of strength. At one point in the show, he lifted a platform containing 19 people ? and a dog! His sense of showmanship, along with Ziegfield's flair for hyperbole, made Sandow a superstar. Suddenly, muscles were "in."

This newfound interest in muscle prompted the physical culturist George Jowett to start what's considered to be the first bodybuilding magazine, Strength. Among Jowett's students was a young man who had visions of grandeur, both as a strongman and a businessman. His name was Bob Hoffman. In 1932, Hoffman founded the York Barbell Club, which became the home base of many of muscledom's early practitioners. He also started his own magazine, Strength and Health.

Hoffman immodestly declared himself as "The Healthiest Man in the World!" Obsessed with the benefits of weight training, he demanded that everyone working at his company lift weights. Hoffman went as far as conducting a mandatory exercise period for every employee ? on their lunch break!

Contrary to his self-proclaimed wholesome image, Hoffman was reputed to be a smoker, a gambler, and a womanizer with a proclivity for the night life. Although he declared lack of sleep as "one of the most detrimental vices," he rarely slept for more than five hours a night. Yet, he never abandoned his immaculate facade. When a friend mentioned to Hoffman that he should rest and recover from an obvious cold, Hoffman barked:

"I don't have a cold! I've never been sick a day in my life!"

Hoffman's arrogance and ego worked in his favor. His tireless work ethic made him highly instrumental in bringing Olympic weightlifting to the forefront of the public's consciousness throughout the 1930s. Bodybuilding, on the other hand, held little appeal to Hoffman. He felt that muscles were a pleasant side effect to weightlifting but the pursuit of muscle alone was vain and narcissistic.

Another ambitious young man intent on beating Hoffman at his own game had different ideas.

And So It Began

Joe Weider saw the appeal of muscle. He assumed it was the enviable appearance of muscularity and its consequential "sex appeal" that inspired men to work out. In 1938, with his life savings of seven dollars, Weider published a crude pamphlet which deliberately emphasized bodybuilding over weightlifting. He called it Your Physique. That modest piece of merchandise launched an empire.

Weider sold weights through the mail, but the first sets weren't barbells and dumbbells in the conventional sense. They were remnants of discarded debris that he found at an old abandoned train yard. Wheels, pipes, axles, and clamps are what made up the original Weider weight sets.

Hoffman, despite his ambivalence toward bodybuilding, wasn't completely oblivious to the appeal of the sport, which is why he sponsored physique competitions in conjunction with weightlifting contests (AAU). But Hoffman made certain that the bodybuilding competition would be last on the bill to assure that everyone would see the weightlifting.

Weider also put on competitions, but he decided to forgo the weightlifting and give the people what they really wanted ? muscle! His IFBB contests offered cash prizes, which attracted the top musclemen of the time. The shows were a huge success and, before long, Hoffman was on the verge of being run out of business. Hoffman decided to fight fire with fire and started a magazine devoted to bodybuilding, called Muscular Development. A man named John Grimek became its editor ? a logical choice, since Grimek wasn't only an undefeated bodybuilding competitor, but also a weightlifting champion, which appealed to Hoffman's sensibilities.

Year after year, Hoffman and Weider slugged it out in bitter rivalry, each vying for the bodybuilding community's business, with Weider always one step ahead. It's doubtful that either of them knew that the business of building muscle was about to get an unimaginable boost from the unlikeliest of places. It was around 1940 when a playground on a Santa Monica oceanfront was attracting hundreds, and eventually thousands, of spectators each day. That small strip of land became known as Muscle Beach.

The Rise

Despite being visionaries, neither Hoffman or Weider could have staged the phenomenon that became known as Muscle Beach. The beachside playground, which had rings and a high bar, was a natural attraction for young men looking to display their strength and athleticism. Bodybuilders were migrating to the area to work out, debate training concepts, and swap stories on the benefits of everything from goat's milk and brewer's yeast to the controversy surrounding "pressing while lying on a bench!" People from miles around would flock to view all the beautiful bodies. But the inhabitants of Muscle Beach offered more than muscle.

Nobody's exactly sure how it started, but it's a fair guess that if one bodybuilder would do a posing routine ending in a full split, the next bodybuilder, in the spirit of friendly "one-upmanship," would do a split while lifting a barbell. This would prompt the next man to attempt the same feat while lifting a pretty girl! Before long, dazzling displays of acrobatic ability reached a level the world had never seen. According to Les Stockton, one of the original participants:

"We'd throw girls 40 feet up in the air and catch them. It's amazing that no one got hurt."

Juggling, tumbling, gymnastics, tossing barbells across the platform, and odd lifts of strength were all daily fare at Muscle Beach. It's hard to imagine that so much effort went into providing free entertainment for onlookers, but the bodybuilders of the time felt they had something to prove. They wanted the world to know that muscle wasn't just "for show." The care and development of one's body was considered a sacred responsibility.

They didn't do it for money or fame. They did it because they loved it. The Muscle Beach crowd advocated the weight-training lifestyle as a testament to what the body is capable of accomplishing ? a far cry from today's drug bloated professional bodybuilders who become annoyed if the audience doesn't show enough enthusiasm during their boring posing routines.

One of Muscle Beach's biggest stars wasn't a muscleman, but a woman. Abbye "Pudgy" Stockton was the first known proponent of the benefits of weight training for women. "I started lifting to reduce, as most young girls do, and I liked how it felt and how it looked," said Pudgy. "At the time, most people didn't work out, so the sight of muscle, especially on a woman, was a shock!" She went on to explain the atmosphere generated at Muscle Beach:

"It was fun! We'd build human pyramids with ten or so people. My boyfriend [Les, now her husband] would do handstand pushups while I held him above me. No one had ever seen anything like it."

Amidst its racy, ribald, and rambunctious activities, Muscle Beach was the mecca of muscle. Anyone who yearned to belong to the fraternity of bodybuilders wanted to be a part of it. Muscle Beach was the place to go and the place to be seen. And anyone who was anyone was there.

The Fall

Along with the healthy bodies at Muscle Beach came healthy libidos. At a time when a woman was expected to maintain her virginity until she was married, the level of promiscuity at the beach was unfounded! People were discovering the sensuality of muscle. Les Stockton recalls:

"There were places the kids would go ? dark, secluded areas ? and have sex in the middle of the day. Then they'd go back to the beach and play some more.

Things finally came to a head when a girl accused two of the beach bodybuilders of rape. Although all charges were dropped, the town council had "had enough." The area residents were becoming embarrassed by the scandalous behavior and started complaining. The latest tawdry allegations were the perfect opportunity for the local authorities to step in and close down Muscle Beach.

Muscle Goes Mainstream

Many of the original beach crowd moved on to other things. Les and Pudgy Stockton opened gyms, as did two other Muscle Beach regulars, Vic Tanny and Jack LaLanne. The gyms proved so successful that Tanny decided to go national. He was the first to open a chain of gyms across the country in the belief the nation was ready for a "fitness craze." He had the right idea, but it was ten years too soon.

Vic's lofty dream of profiting from bodybuilding was a little too radical for 1950 America. The chain went bankrupt less than two years after it opened. Jack LaLanne, on the other hand, was becoming a celebrity from his morning television show. When Jack opened a chain of gyms a few years later, his recognizable name helped make it a booming business. Jack succeeded where Vic failed. Timing is everything.

The Glory Years

While the original Muscle Beach was gone forever, a new Muscle Beach was emerging a few miles down the road in the town of Venice. But this beach site was nothing like the playground in Santa Monica. Things were changing. A new breed of bodybuilders were making the scene. They were bigger, stronger, and far more massive than anyone could have imagined. It was clearly the end of an era ? and the beginning of a new one.

In Part II, we'll trace the second renaissance of bodybuilding, including some of the most influential figures, the first "guru," and a look at the man who many consider to be bodybuilding's one true genius.

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